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It's not racism, it's affirmative action in action!

JONESBORO, Ga. (AP) - On his first day on the job, the new sheriff called 27 employees into his office, stripped them of their badges, fired them, and had rooftop snipers stand guard as they were escorted out the door.

The move Monday by Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill provoked an angry reaction and prompted a judge to order him to rehire the employees...

...Hill, 39, defended the firings and said the new sheriff has the right to shake up the department in whatever way he feels necessary. He told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he fired the employees to "maintain the integrity of the department..."

...The firings had a racial overtone. Hill was among a spate of black candidates elected last year in the county once dominated by rural whites...

...The fired employees included four of the highest-ranking officers, all of them white. Hill told the newspaper their replacements would be black...

At post time, there appear to be just two blogs discussing this, and neither of them appear to be "liberal" blogs. I'm sure the "liberals" are just composing their profound thoughts.

To help them, please leave the bestest "liberal" excuse you can think up in the comments. Bonus points for using "oppression"; double-plus bonus points for using "dialectic" or somehow weaving Noam Chomsky or Noel Ignatiev into your tale.

UPDATE: The DU post on this story doesn't bring up the "racial overtones" mentioned above, despite linking to an AP report on the TBO AP feed and at al Guardian.

However, they have a good excuse: three paragraphs of the story linked to above have been omitted from most of the AP reports. Here are the missing paragraphs:

The firings had a racial overtone. Hill was among a spate of black candidates elected last year in the county once dominated by rural whites. The county seat was the setting for the fictional plantation Tara in "Gone With The Wind."

The fired employees included four of the highest-ranking officers, all of them white. Hill told the newspaper their replacements would be black.

Another of the newly elected black officials, Eldrin Bell, called the move illegal and filed for the restraining order granted by the judge. Bell is the new county commission chairman and former Atlanta police chief.